hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison) (02/11/85)
In article <4300021@hp-pcd.UUCP> daver@hp-pcd.UUCP (daver) writes: >> ...." Christianity >>would qualify as a cult of Judaism, no ? > >No. Perhaps while Jesus was alive he and his followers could have been >considered a cult of Judaism, but Christianity didn't really get started >until after his death and never had much, if anything, to do with Judaism >from that point on. > >Dave Rabinowitz >hplabs!hp-pcd!daver Not quite true. If you do the slightest investigation you learn that Jesus of Nazareth had a noticeable but not huge following during the few years he was preaching. His followers were (with one documented exception) all Jews. After his death and resurrection his followers grew dramatically in numbers, but Christianity remained an exclusively Jewish proposition for almost thirty years. The balance of Jews and Gentiles gradually changed until about 150AD when the Jewish membership was a fairly small percentage. It is one of the shameful bits of Christian history that the majority of the Greek and Roman Gentiles felt disdainful that the Jewish Christians continued to practice the Covenant to the best of their ability (no temple). This was one of the reasons why the Jewish membership in the Christian church declined. So, perhaps the claim can be made that after about 90 years, when the Apostles were all gone, that Christianity was a religion in its own right, no longer a cult of Judaism. However, like it or not, a strong connection remains. This subject should be pursued in net.religion.christian. Flame content is abysmally low. (Ignorance of history does not constitute a flame.) Hutch